


At Night, in Dreams

by ClockworkCourier



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Coping, M/M, Pining, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:39:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: The best of Francis' visitors come in the small hours of the morning.





	At Night, in Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 50th AO3 fic to me! This prompt is courtesy of [earnestscribblr](https://earnestscribblr.tumblr.com/) with a Fitzier prompt using the word 'covet'. Title and general theme shamelessly lifted from the Punch Brothers cover of ["Another New World"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooqsxtdGS0), which I recommend wholeheartedly through my tears.

> “ _Covet, verb transitive_
> 
>   1. To desire or wish for, with eagerness; to desire earnestly to obtain or possess; in a good sense.
> 

> 
> _Covet_  earnestly the best gifts. 1 Corinthians 12:31.”
> 
> -Webster’s Dictionary, 1828

* * *

“—and I had thought to inquire—or, rather, Ann had thought to inquire after those lodgings on recommendation from—Francis? Are you listening?”

Francis pulls his gaze from the windows, blinking slowly as he draws himself back into the conversation. James Ross sits across from him, his face all unveiled concern. “Yes,” Francis replies, if not a bit dully. “Ann asked after some lodgings. I heard you.”

James’ expression carries its doubt with a pinch in his brow and the slow search of Francis’ features. What he sees, Francis doesn’t know; possibly a sad, sorry man all crumpled up like an old newspaper in a plush chair that doesn’t suit him. The constant stream of visitors to Eliot Place certainly haven’t been impressed with the lauded Francis Crozier, Hero of the Lost Expedition. 

“Indeed,” James says at last, running his thumb over the gilded curve of his teacup handle. “It’s not so very far from the Observatory, so you’d have no excuse to avoid visiting us or vice versa, lest you’re ill every day of the year.” 

James follows this up with a smile that Francis believes is an attempt to rekindle their old humour. Francis tries to reflect it, but it feels like a poor imitation.

“Blackheath Park seems fine enough,” Francis concedes. It’s what James wants to hear, he’s sure. “Provided I can afford the place, I’m sure it’s well-suited.”

“That would be provided your memoirs sell, which I have no doubt they will. If you wrote pure gibberish, they’d be snapped up faster than any edition of  _Punch._ ”

Smiling for James’ benefit is starting exhaust him, so Francis allows it to fade. Honestly, if James does not know him well enough to detect a change in his feelings, then perhaps their relationship isn’t as close as Francis has counted on. 

James’ own smile flags and falls, and he follows it with a soft sigh as he places his teacup on the table beside him. Then he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Come now, old man,” he says, sounding like he’s trying to coax Francis out from under the bed. “It’s a new start for everything. If it really vexes you to be so close to Greenwich or within reach of the Admiralty, we can look for lodgings out in the countryside.”

“That’s… That’s hardly the point, James,” Francis says quietly, turning back to look out at the grey day through the rain-warped windowpanes. Then he lowers his head and looks down at the ornate carpet beneath his feet. Such finery still surprises him, even when it seems commonplace. “I think I’d like to go back to my room, if you’re finished with me for the afternoon,” he says.

Silence follows. Long, heavy silence.

“Alright, Francis,” James replies at last. He sounds defeated, sorry for something that is far from his fault. 

❧

Francis sleeps often, far more than he ever did prior to 1845. It comes as catnaps between visitors, or quiet dozes by the fireplace. His dreams come as shallow flickers of light and sound, dancing on the surface of his mind like the sun on open water. And they come in the abstract, in the forms of men that do not exist so much as they are joined products of the parts of dozens that he’s known. These cobbled men walk along in landscapes strange and distorted, made of towering black cliffs and low valleys of grey shale, surrounded on all sides by ice.

Always the ice.

He’s grateful that the dreams are short and hardly worth grasping, often forgotten as soon as he wakes, just as he’s grateful that he comes to in a world where ice can recede. 

The nights are different.

He  _must_  dream, although the things that come at night do not seem like dreams at all. He receives visitors even in the smallest hours of the morning, and they are as true and tangible as James and Ann. They dress in finery or their most casual of clothing, as rosy-cheeked and lively as Francis could ever hope to see. All sit at the fireside—the one in his room at 2 Eliot Place, and not another fireside of a dream—and converse with him. They  _cannot_  be dreams.

Jopson comes, for instance. He must let himself in, which he has every right to—he’s a man of rank now. Occasionally, Little accompanies him or arrives separately for a private conversation. Irving has done so on occasion, although not at Little or Jopson’s frequencies as he has more to do. Blanky visits as well, although far less often than Francis would like. He enjoys his visits best as the two of them stay up to the oddest of hours, laughing like boys over things that could never be discussed outside of the house. 

There is one visitor that Francis wishes to see most of all, and one that he sees the least of. Every night, when his door opens, he holds his breath and waits— _hopes_. 

Tonight, Francis takes his place in the ornate confection of a chair that Ann had insisted on buying for him. Idly, he wishes for his pipe or something else to preoccupy his time. Sometimes his visitors do not come for hours, and aside from the eagerness of waiting for them, Francis can’t help but grow bored.

His visitor for the night does not seem to be one of those who calls at unfortunate hours. It doesn’t seem but a quarter of an hour after sitting in the chair that Francis hears the door open. His breath catches as he turns to look, and something as bright, warm, and wonderful as the sun rises in his chest at the sight.

Fitzjames comes into the room, dressed in an unadorned black coat flecked silver at the shoulders with raindrops. His trousers are finely-tailored, although even in the dim firelight, Francis can see mud at the hem. Even in his simple clothing, he looks as handsome as ever, the fire catching gold in his hair and bronze on his cheekbones. If Francis were even half as eloquent as Fitzjames, he might have some appropriately poetic thing to say; perhaps a comparison to Apollo might befit him.

“James,” he greets, smiling despite himself.

“Francis,” Fitzjames returns as he takes his seat in the chair opposite. Naturally, he easily fits the image of a man in happy repose in a fine chair. “I would say that you look well, but I fear I’d perjure myself.”

Francis huffs a laugh and leans back in his chair. “You would,” he concedes. “I’m afraid I’ve been more out of sorts as of late than I have been in a good while. I’ve concerned Ross, I’m sure.”

“I thought he’d be used to your moods.”

“Not half as much as you are, it seems.”

“He wasn’t trapped with them as I was,” James returns, but his smile does not drop away, nor is it fixed or a masque. Firelight dances in his eyes, burning in the dark liquor of their colour. The sight warms Francis in a way that he cannot properly explain. 

“Yes, well, you’ve certainly made yourself scarce in the interim, James,” Francis replies. “I can count fortnights in between your visits.”

“Oh, it’s not  _that_  severe. I’m a busy man these days,” James says, shrugging back into his seat as he places one heel on the opposite knee. 

“Are you now?”

“Quite so, although not with the same preoccupations that you have. In fact, Francis, if you were even a hair more social, I might say that you would be just as scarce as you claim I am.”

Francis smiles and just as much of a sorry mimic as it felt when he directed it at James Ross, it feels as opposingly authentic now. “Would you drag me to parties and show me off, then?” he jokes. God on high, he can’t remember the last soiree he attended that wasn’t mandatory. “Make ourselves the centrepieces of every respectful gala—Fitzjames and Crozier, Heroes of the Far North?”

James laughs and the sound rings off the ceiling like the most wonderful arrangement of bells. Part of Francis hopes it doesn’t wake James and Ann, although some traitorous part hopes it  _does_ , if only to hear his own felicity in progress.

“I wouldn’t mind it, but I know you’d detest every minute.”

“And then some.”

“Lord above, Francis, have you  _ever_  enjoyed a party?”

“Not a one. I detest all delights and celebrations. I thought we’ve established this.”

Another laugh. Francis would coax a hundred of them from Fitzjames if he could. “We have. Thank you kindly for reminding me of your dreariness,” he says, folding his hands on his chest as he leans back. “That being said, I hadn’t come to goad or jeer at you. There  _was_  an intent to my visit.”

A quiet pause follows with hardly a pound of the heaviness that Francis had felt earlier. They sit in the crackling, warm darkness, pleased with each other’s company and wanting for little else.

“I had wanted to ask for… well, for a blessing, of sorts,” Fitzjames says, sounding thoughtful. “I didn’t know how to time it wisely, and every hour that I considered seemed to be the wrong one.”  
  
“Not worth sending a letter, then?” Francis asks. 

“Hardly, no. This sort of thing deserved a personal conference.”

A strange rush of something bright and flushed-warm runs a course through Francis at a speed and extension that he can hardly understand. He feels as giddy as a schoolboy, as clumsy as a child just gaining their legs under them, as struck in the heart as a man holding a perfumed letter close to his chest. It’s all the stranger for how this strikes him, even with the fewest possible words to stir them.

“James—,” he starts, although how he means to follow this, he doesn’t know.

Fitzjames lifts a hand to pause him. “Pardon a moment, Francis. Let me say my piece before I ask.”

“Of course,” Francis concedes. If asked, James could talk until sunrise and Francis would let him.

“First, I meant to inquire the state of your memoirs. I’d heard it through some sources that you mean to publish them before December.”

“January, I think. Ross is trying to persuade me to be expedient but I’m yet to send in the final edit.”

James gives him a peculiar look, playing off his own smile like he means to smirk but is too kind to do so at Francis’ expense. “Mister Blanky once told me that they would need to invent a new kind of literature if there was ever an intent to publish an honest memoir. I trust the same applies to your own.”

Francis thinks to the pile of papers sitting in the top drawer of his writing desk. The stack is stained with blots of ink and netted with scratched-out words and phrases. Whole chapters have been crumpled up and burned in the very fireplace they sit before. Francis believes that Fitzjames is well-aware of this fact.

“It does,” Francis agrees. “Being honest about it would only serve to have me locked up for the rest of my days, James.”

James does not say what both are thinking. The Creature, bloody-mawed and snarling with bits of skin and cloth woven between its teeth. Cornelius Hickey, or the man that paraded under the poor bastard’s name as he sprung a trap of mutiny and kindled the most craven behaviours. Gunshots echoing through canyons of ice, blood spattered across the snow, men ripped asunder by beast or crew.

“I understand,” James says at last, and he means both words wholeheartedly. “And that leads me to my question. Do you recall those last moments we had? It was— Oh, I can hardly recall the location now. King William Land, certainly.”

“Island,” Francis corrects. “King William Island.”

“Of course. My own memory shouldn’t be so patchy. But yes, there at the end, do you recall our conversation?”

Francis thinks on the question. He dimly remembers those grey moments before the rescue, not unlike the grey hour that precedes the dawn, when all the world is cast in the colours of doves. He thinks of the ice fields and the black dots that appeared on their seemingly endless horizons. Dogs barking. Men shouting. And their conversation—

God above, what did they even say at the end? It comes as a blur now, muddied in the relief of rescue and the grief that followed.

“I… It was something about…” Francis trails off, furrowing his brow as he thinks. 

James sits in patient silence, watching Francis with eyes as bright as embers in the darkness. “You can’t remember?”

“I’m certain I can. I meant to write of it, after all. It’s late, if that’s any plausible excuse.”

“It may be, although I believe I can assist in that and you would not even have to mark me as your co-author.”

Francis laughs, little more than a soft puff of sound. “Your name  _not_  in print? You could stand by that?”

“Among other things, but yes,” James replies. “You asked me a question, and I mean to ask you something similar. You asked me if I was certain. Do you remember?”

No memory immediately follows save for something that feels like trying to clear away a screen of cotton in his own head. Francis tries to connect the question to the rescue. Was he certain of… of the reality of the rescue? Certain that they would make it? Certain of their numbers?

“I suppose I might,” Francis says, although something about the question perturbs him.

James seems to take this as reason enough to go on. “I received something of a missive recently. It was of the private sort, and one that I trust you wholeheartedly not to spread beyond these walls. Can I ask that of you?”

Without hesitation, “Of course.”

“I told you of my birth, I know.”

“You did.”

“It seems strange to say as I remember nothing of the circumstance, as hardly anyone can claim they do, but recently, I’ve started to recall the smell of orange blossoms. Isn’t that odd?” James asks. He smiles as if he’s told a particularly clever joke, and Francis can’t help but smile back. “I believe I was born in a florid sort of place, and sometimes I catch the scent of something that draws me back to it, even though all I’ve ever known is England. Just a few weeks ago, I was presented with the opportunity to go back to that place.”

“To— To where you were born, James?”

“One in the same,” James confirms. There’s something dreamy in his expression now. “I’ve never been since infancy, if that could even be confirmed. I’ve been told it’s very warm and tropical, which makes it quite the opposite of the Arctic in every way.”

Francis puzzles over this a moment, trying to connect the parts of their conversations to predict what James means to ask of him. Some stray piece of his heart founders as if it means to sink, and he does not know why. “So, you mean to ask…”

“For your blessing on this journey. I will be gone for a long while and I’ve not yet considered the details of my return to England,” James says, spreading his palms upright in his explanation. “I mean for it to be a visit, but I don’t know what will happen once I get there.”

Frowning, Francis shakes his head. “Why would you ask me? I’m hardly your keeper, James. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

At this, James gives him something like a conspiratorial smile. He sits up, drawing himself out of his repose, his hands folded in his lap. “Francis,” he says. “Are you so blind to what I ask of you?”

“I… Well, I must be. You’re a grown man and aside from missing your company, I can’t fathom why you’d consider my opinion in the matter,” Francis replies, bristling despite himself and with no explanation as to why. That foundering part of his heart is in danger of grounding on some unseen shoal, and that’s the only source of his discomfort that he can identify.

James stares at him, astounded, before shaking his head. “Oh, you wonderful, foolish man,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“I’m going away, Francis. I’m leaving for a long,  _long_  time and I do not know the hour of my return any more than I know the moment that we will meet again. You understand this?”

“Of course, I do. But James, I don’t—”

James’ hand goes up again. “Please, Francis. Let me finish, as I want perfect clarity between us. That was my chief mistake in the Arctic and I never intend to have that be our divide.” He lowers his hand back into his lap and stares a moment longer, still with that burning look in his eyes, searching as Ross had done but not for the same answer. “Back then, on King William Island, you had asked me if I was certain, and I mean to say it now that I  _am_ , and I hope you are as well.”

Certain of—

_Scabbed lips and eyes rimmed in red. Voiceless. A hand on his._

“I am certain of  _this_ ,” James goes on. “That I want you to have what  _you_  want. I know now more than I’ve ever known before that you have not gotten half of what you’ve deserved from the world, and I mean to end that pattern as best I can.”

Suddenly, James reaches across the space between them, taking Francis’ hands in his own. Francis can feel the old callouses on his fingers; marks from rifles and rockets, from handling ropes, from holding pens. Francis could feel them for years and never tire of their shapes and forms. He squeezes James’ hands, earning a smile from him that he reflects without hesitation.

_A stopped bottle. Bared throat. A moment suspended like dust in a sunbeam, silent and still._

“If you’d have me stay in England, I will,” James says, emphasizing every other word with a slight shake of their joined hands. “I will stay on this side of the Cliffs of Dover and never know their faces. I won’t sail so much as a ship’s length west of Ireland or north of Orkney if that would be your will. If you mean for me to stay in order to keep your happiness, then I am a servant to it.”

_Swallow through the tightness in his throat. Swallow through the reflexes._

“But if you’d allow me to go west, then I am sure I will find some happiness there as well, and I can at the very least promise that I would see you again, even though there would be years to follow our parting.”

Francis stares in awe at James, at the clarity in his eyes, the sureness, the strength and health he carries in his entire carriage. His own heart flutters like those same grey doves, pressing up insistently at his ribs as if the whole contraption means to escape. “Oh, James,” he says. He reaches up to press one hand against James’ cheek, thumb going over the ridge of his cheekbone and marvelling at the softness and warmth he finds there. “You needn’t ask for that.”

“I do,” James replies as he leans into Francis’ hand. “I want your happiness foremost, as it’s one thing that’s been denied to you too often.”

_Stillness. Silence and stillness. Cold._

“James,” is all Francis can think to say. His heart, now released from the shoal, moves on his accord and urges him forward to press his lips against James’ forehead. He cannot ignore how James leans into this gesture as well as if Francis’ touch is the only thing worth seeking.

“I am certain,” Francis says against his skin. He leans back but stays close enough that he can see the lights in James’ eyes, can hear the soft draw and release of his breath. His hand does not leave his cheek. “I am certain,” he repeats.

❧

_“A great loss against the world was incurred in that hour. If it were possible to pass the sorry announcement onto the earth from that remote and terrible place, all good creatures would have mourned his passing. I said good-bye to a dear friend in Captain Fitzjames, and while my loss was in no way comparable to what England and the world lost, I felt it most acutely.”_

- _Narrative of the Franklin Expedition to the Northwest Passage, and Its Loss and Rescue, in the Years 1845-1848,_ Capt. Francis R.M. Crozier, 1851

**Author's Note:**

> >:3c
> 
> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)


End file.
